Article excerpt

Early reports suggest that the philosophies of shooting suspect
Jared Loughner are tangled and largely incoherent - ranging from
nihilism to 'lucid dreaming.' So far, there does not appear to be
clear link to talk radio or hyperpartisanship, though that could
change.

Initial reports about Jared Loughner, the 22-year-old college
dropout charged with killing six and gravely wounding Rep. Gabrielle
Giffords in Tucson, Ariz., Saturday, so far present a picture of a
person inspired by a tangled and in some ways nonsensical web of
philosophies more than any one person, political movement, or line
of thought.

Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik suggested Saturday that the
shootings might have been influenced by "vitriolic rhetoric" in the
political discourse. He went on to single out talk radio and Sarah
Palin, who, on her website last fall, targeted 20 House districts
for Republican takeovers with cross hairs - including Congresswoman
Giffords's.

Rep. Robert Brady (D) of Pennsylvania is reportedly preparing a
bill that would outlaw the use of threatening rhetoric against
lawmakers.

The investigation of the incident has clearly not finished, and
new revelations are sure to come. But at this early stage, no clear
links have emerged between Loughner and the current political
climate. Rather, acquaintences and criminologists point to a
convoluted worldview that appears largely incoherent - ranging from
a fascination with dreams to an apparent penchant for nihilism.

His writings merge everything from the Communist Manifesto to
discussions of the gold standard to the government's oppression by
use of grammar.

"That is in a nutshell what schizophrenics tend to do, they pick
up a concept, but it doesn't stay a coherent concept the way it
would with someone else's mind," says Mark Pitcavage, the director
of investigative research at the Anti-Defamation League. "They just
throw it into the big pile of things that ends up being their own
delusional structures."

Mr. Tierney, who said he was a close friend of Loughner's in
middle and high school added: "By the time he was 19 or 20, he was
really fascinated with semantics and how the world is really nothing
- illusion. …

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